After a few late February thaws, some maple syrup producers in central Aroostook County started tapping their trees early and are now hoping March brings bountiful running sap.
“We may be making syrup this year earlier than ever before,” said Charlene Bradbury of Bradbury Maple in Bridgewater. Usually, they’re making syrup by March 25 and last year started on March 10, said Bradbury.
By Feb. 27 this year, they had all of their taps in and started getting the rest of their equipment ready. Charlene Bradbury manages the maple house, tours and retail sales, while her husband Boyd handles the evaporator and their son Bart works the reverse osmosis machine and vacuum system.
“We’re a three-person operation,” she said. “On the weekend, it’s a family affair.”
The Bradburys tap about 4,400 maples on their 80-acre old growth wood lot, where many of the maples are more than 100 years old, said Bart Bradbury.
The Bradburys started tapping in 1984, picking up where Boyd’s great grandfather Ellie Sharp left off in the 1930s, Charlene Bradbury said. Sharp used a large cast iron evaporator that Boyd Bradbury later found in the wood lot.
“It was pretty rough,” Charlene Boyd said of their first year tapping 150 trees in 1984. “We didn’t have a road or electricity, just a small camp.”
Today they are still using that cast iron evaporator, powered by oil, after the sap is run through a reverse osmosis system that removes much of the water. They make a range of maple products beyond syrup, including maple sugar, jelly and creme.
“A lot of people are into the natural sweeteners,” Boyd said. “Maple creme is probably the most popular item next to the syrup.”
Twenty miles north in Easton, C.J. King of the Maple Moose also started tapping early this year and was about half-way done the 2,500 taps on the morning of the last day of February.
“We’d tried to take advantage of the warmer temperatures. It’s a lot easier to do when it’s warmer out. You can work with your gloves off,” King said.
The Maple Moose is now in its 11th year as a sugarhouse. King, a custom home builder, started tapping as a hobby with 15 trees and grew it into a side business and passion. The King’s maples are in a mixed, mature forest spread across 15 acres.
With unpredictable late winter weather, Maple producers are increasingly taking risks in the timing of tapping King said.
“We’re gambling on the weather, not knowing if this is the start of our season,” King said.
“Last year, it did this to us, too,” he said of the warm late February. “And then it froze up for three weeks.”
Both Bradbury Maple and the Maple Moose are among the maple producers who will be welcoming visitors to their sugarhouses for Maine Maple Sunday, this year scheduled for March 25.
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- George Bradbury, left, and Boyd Bradbury of Bradbury Farms in Bridgewater, work in the family sugarbush in March 2016. (Mike Gudreau)
